Tunisian activists launch 'Resistance Cinema' to support Gaza amid festival cancellation

Selection of films supporting Palestinians will be projected on to walls of French Institute in Tunis

People gather outside the French Institute in Tunis to watch a film screening as part of the ‘resistance cinema days’ street festival

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Following the authorities' decision to cancel what would have been the 34th Carthage Film Festival, Tunisian civil activists have launched the so-called Resistance Cinema to pay tribute to Palestinians in Gaza during the continuing war with Israel.

Organisers chose the French Institute in Tunis (IFT), which promotes French culture around the world, to show films about the history of the Palestinian resistance and the living conditions of the people under occupation.

Two documentaries were shown on Sunday night, with more than 50 people attending the screenings and more expected to attend a coming event, to be announced a few hours before it takes place.

Choosing the IFT to broadcast the films was in protest against "France’s position in supporting the Israeli aggression against the Palestinians", organisers said.

“We have decided to break the silence barrier through pictures and sound with the projection of short resistance films on the wall of resistance,” the group said on its Facebook page.

Yosra Chikhaoui, a journalist, film critic and supporter of the Palestinian cause, told The National the move comes as Tunisians continue to seek ways to show support for the people in Gaza.

“This move, which is not just a usual event, is a symbolic one to tell them [IFT administration] that even if they keep repainting their walls and removing the Palestinian flag, we will still make that wall a space for resistance through other alternatives,” Ms Chikhaoui said.

Since last week, activists have daubed the walls of the IFT with graffiti depicting the Palestinian flag, slogans in support of Palestinians and in denunciations of France’s position on the war.

The IFT has had its walls repainted to remove the pro-Palestine slogans.

"This move is also a response to what we all consider the complicity of France in the ongoing aggression against Gaza and any party representing the French authorities in Tunisia is an extension to that policy and is also complicit,” Ms Chikhaoui added.

For the past two weeks, thousands of Tunisians have repeatedly rallied to denounce Israel’s bombing of Palestinians and perceived western complicity in the attacks on the Gaza Strip.

People wave the Palestinian flag during a protest to express their solidarity with Gaza in the Tunisian capital. AFP

On Thursday, more than 20,000 people gathered in protest on Habib Bourguiba Avenue, near the headquarters of the French embassy, calling on the Tunisian government to expel the French ambassador.

Anti-French and US sentiment has been growing in Tunisia in recent days, over those governments' support for the Israeli cause as the death toll from air strikes in Gaza nears 5,000.

The setting up of the cinema is also in response to the cancellation of the prestigious Carthage Film Festival, which raises awareness of the struggle of people around the world, Ms Chikhaoui said.

“What Palestinians are going through has not killed their love for life, we are always learning about life from them,” she said.

Tunisia, which hosted the Palestine Liberation Organisation from 1982 to 1994, has long been a supporter of the Palestinian cause.

The Israeli bombing of the PLO headquarters in Hammem Echott, Tunis, in October 1985, aiming to assassinate the late Palestinian president Yasser Arafat and several members of the PLO leadership, became a defining point in the country’s stance towards Israel.

Since the beginning of the Israel-Gaza war, Tunisia has declared its unconditional support for Palestinians’ right to retrieve their historic lands and their right to fight Israeli occupation.